


Who the Child Will Be

by Englishtutor



Series: A Watson When You Need One [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A hidden past is discovered, A name for Baby Lestrade, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-18 21:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7331842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englishtutor/pseuds/Englishtutor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary never talks about her past.  But when an artefact from her childhood is found, an amazing discovery is made.  This story brings the revelations of "Chance Meetings" from "The Other Doctor Watson" into this AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chance Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my Brit-picker mrspencil and my beta Fang’s Fawn—two special ladies who brighten my life immensely.

“Have you decided on a name yet?” Mary asked brightly, neatly folding a pile of colourful, freshly laundered nappy covers and packing them into a box. She was perched on a footstool facing Molly, who was seated comfortably on the couch surrounded by baby paraphernalia. 

Sherlock groaned loudly and rolled his eyes, slouching even further down into the armchair. This subject came up every time the Lestrades appeared, anywhere, in any setting—at a crime scene, at NSY, in the morgue, in his flat. Now they were at the Watsons’, sorting through Ian’s baby things, making heart-stopping decisions about the viability of muslin squares—could life be any more tedious? The only reason Sherlock had agreed to join them for dinner and sorting was that it meant spending time with his nephew, who had subsequently deserted him for parts unknown, presumably as bored as a consulting detective.

“Yes, we have settled on one at last!” Molly gushed. “Greg’s grandmother’s name was Justine, which also happens to be the name of a famous pathologist whom I’ve always admired -- Justine Johnstone. She helped to invent the modern intravenous drip and a cryogenic therapy to destroy cancer cells, and other important medical innovations.”

Greg, looking up from the cot he and John were disassembling, smiled at her enthusiasm. “I love it when you talk sexy like that,” he teased. “Incidentally, Justine Johnstone was also a famous silent film star in the twenties, a great beauty. Wish I could say the same for my Grandmere, poor old dear.”

“Justine Lestrade. That sounds well together,” Mary declared. 

“A fitting name for the child of a couple dedicated to law enforcement,” John added wryly, eliciting some chuckles. Sherlock did not participate. He merely sighed again, loudly, and was unsurprised that his family ignored him.

“But you’ll never guess the middle name we’ve come up with,” Molly said, smiling mischievously. By the glint in Greg’s eye, it was not even necessary for Sherlock to guess. He knew.

“Her name will be Justine Marie Lestrade,” he declared impatiently. “All this fuss over an appellation. It’s who the child will be that’s important, not what she’s called.”

Greg and Molly looked annoyed with him, but Mary’s and John’s pleased laughter quickly put them back into good spirits. “Sherlock’s right, of course,” Mary chuckled. “And little Justine Marie will be just like her parents—clever and dedicated and caring. But names are important, too, and hers is quite lovely! I’m honoured! Thank you!”

“He’s just jealous because you’re not naming the baby after him. In a moment he’ll be insisting that ‘Sherlock’ is a girl’s name!” John remarked cheerfully.

Sherlock sputtered indignantly, but before he could respond Ian Scott (named after Sherlock!) made an entrance, wearing a remarkably ancient coat--brown suede and wool-lined, and obviously adult-sized, the hem and sleeves dragged behind the child on the floor.

“What on earth have you got on?” John asked in amusement. “Where did you get that?”

“I want to find fings for the baby, too,” the four-year-old explained, gesturing to the boxes of his old things. “Not just clothes,” he added, looking vaguely disgusted at the nappies and sleep suits his mother and aunt were folding with such love. “I was looking for toys.”

Mary’s face took on that expression she often had when dealing with a certain consulting detective: mingled amusement and exasperation. “Darling, you won’t find toys for the baby in my private things. I had that stashed away in the bottom of my wardrobe, where you’ve no business to be.” Pulling Ian to her, she gently removed the coat, stroking its soft suede fondly and then folding it reverently in her lap.

“Where did it come from? I’ve never seen it around the place before,” John wanted to know.

“You know the footlocker in my wardrobe? That trunk came over from India with me when I was sent here as a girl: I’ve kept all my childhood memorabilia in it. Not that there’s much in it—this coat is the chief item I’ve preserved. It was given me during my first winter here by a stranger on the street—you can imagine it fit six-year-old me about as well as it fits Ian! But it kept me warm and safe for many years. . . .” her voice trailed off and she fingered the coat lovingly as she stared off into the past. Sherlock sat up straighter. This item was obviously precious to Mary. He narrowed his eyes and tried to deduce why this might be. From across the room, he could see that the coat was a male adult’s size medium, stained, badly frayed at the hem, and the sleeves well-creased as if they had spent years rolled up.

“Can I have it, Mum? I like it,” her son looked after the brown coat longingly.

“Maybe one day, when you’re bigger. It’s very old and worn now and I don’t like to think of it dragging the ground. I did enough of that when I was small.” Mary’s hands smoothed the material gently—this was obviously a beloved object.

“I imagine you didn’t have much in the way of warm clothing, coming here from India,” Molly remarked. “I’m glad a stranger looked after you, even if your rummy relatives didn’t bother.” She picked Ian up and hugged him. “Isn’t it funny to think of your Mum at your age, growing up in India, so far away?”

“She say that’s why she’s wild and no one can tame her,” Ian confided. This time, even Sherlock couldn’t suppress a chuckle. 

“You never talk about your life, Mary,” Molly commented, reaching around her nephew to fold a pile of baby blankets and packing them into the box. “Did six-year-old you find anything to like about London when you moved here?”

“I hated it intensely,” Mary smiled ruefully. “In fact, I hated it so much I was here less than a week when I ran away from home. I think I had some idea that if I could only make it to Heathrow, I could simply walk onto a plane and fly back to India. Turns out I only made it to Hyde Park! A boy found me there—a remarkably clever boy. I told you about him once, Sherlock; you remind me so much of him. He took one look at me and knew my whole life’s story.”

“You told me about him,” Sherlock said, sounding more surly than he felt. “I remember you called my deductive ability ‘a knack’.” He clicked the final ‘k’ emphatically to show his annoyance, and Mary grinned impishly at him.

All the time, Sherlock was very aware of John, who was sitting still on the floor gazing intently at his wife, studying her. It was indeed true that Mary rarely spoke of her life before meeting John. His friend would consider these revelations as gems to be treasured.

“I remember that footlocker,” Greg spoke up unexpectedly. He put down the wrench he had been using and rose to sit by Molly on the couch. “Remember I told you Mary and I worked out that she was born the same day as my Rose? We also realized that she must have come to England about the same time that Rose passed away. We went to look at the shipping label on that footlocker, and sure enough: the very day my little girl left me, Mary’s father put his only child on a plane and sent her away.”

“Matthew Morstan was a monster,” John muttered, putting away his tools. The mere mention of Mary’s father was an instant trigger for his temper.

“That’s so sad,” Molly murmured, rubbing her swelling belly. “I just can’t imagine not wanting my baby. I haven’t even met her yet, but I couldn’t bear to lose her.” 

Ian, still in his aunt’s lap, patted her baby bump soothingly. “We’ll take care of her, Aunt M’y,” he assured her, and she squeezed him tightly.

“A momentous week for both of us,” Mary said to Greg. “Both our lives changed completely in one day.” They shared an understanding smile.

But Greg was never one to wallow in his feelings. His mischievous eyes glinted at Sherlock as he added, “It was a momentous and life-changing week for me in more ways than one. I had been on family leave for some time, but the very day I returned to work, a few days after Rose died, I met a boy called Sherlock Holmes.”

John stood from where he had been working over the cot and settled in an armchair behind his wife. “That would be the Carl Powers case, yeah? The case of the missing shoes?”

Greg chortled, “Oh, yeah! This fourteen-year-old boy strides right into Scotland Yard, demanding to see the detectives in charge of the case, and then proceeds to tell them all everything they had missed. You can imagine he was tossed out on his ear. But I was impressed: it was obvious he was right. But I couldn’t do a thing to help. He’d already alienated everyone else, and I was a just lowly Detective Sergeant, not yet re-assigned to a division.”

“You were the only one who would listen to me,” Sherlock grudgingly acknowledged. “Useless as you were to me at the time, I remember being grateful.”

Greg smiled at him affectionately. “I gave him my card; told him to look me up first next time he had a lead on a case and I would see he was heard. I never expected him to take me up on it so soon!”

Sherlock felt a jolt in his insides, as if he were missing something important. “So soon,” he scoffed deliberately. “I didn’t see you again for fifteen years!”

“For a case, yeah,” Greg agreed amiably. “But you came back to the Yard that very afternoon and demanded to see me.” He looked at Sherlock, puzzled. “You don’t remember?”

Sherlock shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t.”

“Well, I never forgot it. I clung to this memory desperately many a time, when I worried you weren’t even human; it reminded me that you have a heart in that chest somewhere. You were so concerned with the safety of a little six-year-old runaway you’d found in . . . .”

And the room froze. All mouths hung open in astonished realization. Greg’s head swiveled to look at Mary and their eyes met in delighted discovery. 

“In Hyde Park,” they whispered in unison.


	2. A Past Uncovered

After five and three-quarters seconds of astonished silence, the two couples erupted with excitement. Exclamations of awe, disbelief, and amazement showered the room like sparks from a Roman candle.

But Sherlock sat in an agony of fruitless retrospection, his eyes closed and his fingers steepled against his lips. How could he have forgotten the first time he had met someone who was so supremely important to him? Of course, he couldn’t have known at the time how important Mary was to become. But he couldn’t help feeling a sense of deep loss. He delved into the discard vault of his mind palace—the place where he consigned all deleted memories—because of course, no memory is ever completely gone. But without any filing system whatever, sifting through the millions of bits of information seemed hopeless.

“I deleted it,” he said aloud without meaning to, and sounding much bleaker than he would have ever intended. His family grew suddenly quiet. To his consternation, he knew with his eyes closed that all attention was now turned to him. 

A little hand was placed on his knee. “Don’t be sad, Uncle Sh’ock.” Four-year-old Ian was always very concerned with the happiness of his family. Sherlock smiled down at his nephew. 

“I’m not sad, Ian. It doesn’t really matter,” he lied, trying to reassure himself as well as everyone else in the room. But he looked at Mary, and he knew that she knew. She always knew.

She shifted the old, brown coat into her husband’s lap and said brightly, “Come here, Ian, and I’ll tell you a story about how amazing your family is.” Once the child was settled on her lap, she began: 

“Once upon a time, I was born on an army base in India. I had the run of the place and I was very happy. But then, when I was just your age, my mum died. My father didn’t know how to live without her, or how to take care of me by himself.”

John made a strangled sound of choked outrage, but Mary turned and gave him a look that quelled his inarticulate protest. He resignedly turned his attention to the old, brown coat in his lap, his mouth pulled tightly.

“So when I was six, he put me on a big aeroplane and sent me to England,” she went on.

“I know this story,” Ian interrupted. “You told me before. It not ‘mazing—it just sad. You was lonely and didn’t like being in a city. You liked being wild.”

“Just wait,” Mary chuckled. “We’re coming to a part even I didn’t know myself until just moments ago. You see, I was so unhappy in London that I tried to run away, back to India, where I could do whatever I wanted and where I would be called by my proper name. The cousin I was living with had a daughter called Mary, so she always only called me by my middle name.”

“She called you Elizabeth and you wouldn’t answer,” Greg added, smiling at the memory. “’It’s a problem’, you said to me, and nearly broke my heart. It was all I could do to stop myself running away with you and raising you myself.”

As they were talking, Sherlock remained in his thinking position with closed eyes—and their words conjured a vision: a small child with a wild mane of ash-blonde hair and the most ferocious blue eyes he had ever seen, striding down Edgware Road as if she owned it all. 

“Oh, do stop!” he vaguely heard Molly exclaim to her husband. “You’re telling it all out of order! I want to hear it told properly. Please go on, Mary; it’s all so exciting!”

“Well, where was I? Yes, I ran away from my cousin’s house, and ended up in Hyde Park.”

“A miniature lioness,” Sherlock said suddenly. All eyes turned from Mary to him, eyes wide.

“You’ve remembered!” Molly squealed, clapping her hands.

“I am in the process of remembering,” he corrected her with great dignity. “This lioness caught my notice because she was so cleverly eluding detection as an unaccompanied child by everyone on the street. Except for myself, of course.”

Mary’s dimples deepened and she twinkled cheerfully at him. “Of course.” She continued telling her story to Ian, but her eyes held Sherlock’s as she spoke. “I had no idea of the danger I was in, alone on the streets of an unforgiving city. But the cleverest boy in the world found me and saved my life, in so many ways.”

“Uncle Sh’ock!” Ian exclaimed. “He founded you when you was losted!”

“He did,” Mary smiled in agreement. “But not only that, he gave me some of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. The first gift was the truth—he was almost brutally honest about the danger that lurked for a child on her own.” She glanced at Greg in some amusement. “Some might say it was more truth than a six-year-old needed to hear, but it prevented me from ever running away again—every time I considered it, I heard that clever boy’s voice in my head, warning me against it.”

John looked at him grimly. “Thank God for that,” he said fervently.

“It also taught me the value of truth itself. Since then, I’ve always tried never to lie to anyone. Now, the second gift he gave me,” Mary continued, “was to tell me I was clever. I knew, coming from him, that really meant something. The self-confidence that gave me has lasted all my life.”

“What ‘self-condifense’ is?” Ian wanted to know.

“It means I can believe in myself, in my own ability to think and reason. And then this clever boy gave me the tools to learn good reasoning skills: he taught me the ‘deductions’ game.”

“He teach me that game, too!” Ian crowed happily.

Mary looked Sherlock in the eyes once more. “I practiced that game every day. It saved me from some very sticky situations throughout my life, and helped me to know whether a stranger was trustworthy or not at a glance. I imagine you saved my life more times than even I was aware of at the time. I have a great deal to thank you for,” she said earnestly.

“So have I,” John said quietly. “Apparently, more than I ever knew.”

Sherlock had no idea how to respond to this. He felt deeply grateful that he had made a real difference in the life of his friend—he was extremely grateful if anything he had taught Mary had actually saved her life for the day when they would meet properly at last. But Mary, of course, could see all of this and he knew he didn’t need to say it aloud. Sometimes he thought the woman could look directly into his soul. 

Suddenly the entire memory of his encounter with six-year-old Mary intruded into his conscious mind. He could see her fearless expression clearly and hear her fierce little voice. He frowned because his nose seemed to be a bit runny. He resisted the urge to pull out a handkerchief and blow it. 

“You waved that right index finger in my face and told me off,” he reminisced, smiling at the memory. “Said you didn’t need anybody and you could take care of yourself.”

“That’s our Mary—bossing you around even then!” John chuckled warmly.

“Thank God you managed to make her listen to you,” Greg said fervently. “I hate to think of what might have happened. . . .”

“Oh, so do I!” Mary cried earnestly. “I didn’t understand it then, but of course, we all need each other to survive, don’t we?”

Looking self-consciously at John, Sherlock was surprised that his friend no longer seemed to be giving Mary’s amazing revelations all of his attention. The doctor was transfixed by the brown, suede coat on his lap---examining the label, the lapels, the unique buttons down its front. He wondered. . . .

“What happen neks?” Ian demanded impatiently. 

“Yes, what happened next?” Molly demanded almost as impatiently. “This is like a fairy story, Mary! Do go on.” She was as excited as any child, gripping Greg’s hand firmly in hers.

Mary smiled at their enthusiasm. “Well, then young Sherlock gave me the best gift of all.” She rolled her eyes teasingly at him. “He took me to his one and only friend in London—the one person he knew he could trust to look after me.”

“Daddy!” Ian shouted, bouncing in her lap.

She laughed. “No, darling, not Daddy. He and your uncle hadn’t even met yet.”

“And besides, I wasn’t in London at the time. I would have still been living in Old Alresford with your Aunt Harry, where we grew up,” John added, looking up from his examination of the coat and refocusing his attention on his wife.

“Oh, do stop interrupting the story! Go on, Mary, tell us where he took you,” Molly cried in an agony of impatience. She obviously knew where the narrative was going and couldn’t wait to hear it told properly.

“The boy took me to Scotland Yard and entrusted me to ‘my policeman’, as I always thought of him,” Mary went on, looking fondly at her adopted father. “And this policeman gave me some wonderful gifts that helped me survive in the years to come. The first one was: he listened to me. Really listened, and understood. I felt heard for the first time in my life. Everyone else I knew just considered me a burden to be dealt with; a problem to solve. He saw me as a child who needed attention and protection. So that’s the second gift he gave me—a sense of self-worth.”

She turned to Ian and explained, “That means he made me feel I was important enough to deserve care and to be treated well. I clung to that over the years like a life raft, sometimes.” She turned back to Greg and smiled through a mist of tears, whispering, “’Be yourself, my girl,’” you said to me, as if ‘myself’ was someone worth being. So I always tried to be.”

“Thank God for that!” John said emphatically, his hands clutching the brown coat in a white-knuckled grip. “Greg, you were certainly there for her at just the right time.”

“It sounds ridiculous, but I felt as if Rose had sent this lost waif to me to look after,” Greg admitted, smiling sheepishly. “I always felt I’d let you down, and let her down as well, taking you back to that house where you were so mistreated.”

“I knew you had no choice,” Mary assured him. “And you never let anyone down. You and Sherlock both stayed here,” she put a hand on her heart, “all my life. And I’ve always heard your voices in my head. I’m just glad that now I know who you are.”

She turned back to Ian. “You see, I told you this is an amazing story. If I hadn’t met your uncle and your papa so many years ago, I would not be the person I am today. I might even be a criminal mastermind!” She looked at Sherlock with twinkling eyes. “I might have met a consulting detective and detective inspector in a completely different capacity as an adult, if they hadn’t helped me when I was a child. They, and one other important person . . . .”

“Who, Mummy? Who?” Ian demanded. But Mary was lost in thought.


	3. Fate Revealed

The amount of sentiment in the room was stifling. Sherlock looked around at the little family and noted that tears were actually dripping down Molly’s rapt face as she gazed at her husband. She’d known him for years! But now she looked as if he’d personally hung the moon. Greg himself was clearly unable to speak, smiling lopsidedly and looking at the floor to hide his own damp eyes. And John—the stalwart soldier who had endured battle and injury and who had looked death in the face unflinchingly—John had tears in his eyes as well, gazing tenderly at his wife and child with a gentle smile on his lips, and then down at the coat in his hands.

Only Ian was behaving like a rational human being, albeit a four-year-old one. He bounced on his mother’s lap and chanted, “What happen neks? What happen neks? Who the other one who help? Talk, Mummy, talk!”

Mary swiped at her eyes with one hand, the other hugging her boy to her. “Well, then, erm. . . .” She scrambled to recover her composure. “Oh, then my cousin sent me to live with her sister in a little village in, erm, Hampshire I think. It was lovely! I enjoyed every minute of being there, even though I wasn’t there for more than a few months. She had so many children of her own, I was largely ignored, and was happy to be so. I ran around and explored all on my own, and they rarely even noticed. Such freedom! Then one morning, I woke up to a world covered in snow! Can you believe it, Ian? There’s never snow in India: I’d never seen such a thing before, and I was enchanted. I played outside all morning, even though I had no warm things to wear; and while I was practising throwing snowballs, I met a young man who gave me two more very important gifts that helped me all through my life.”

“Oh, the coat! The coat!” Molly exclaimed in excitement. She was leaning forward in her seat, as swept up the story as a child at the theatre. “Tell us about the coat!”

Mary looked off into the middle distance, bringing up the memory. “This young couple walked by—arguing, they were. The young woman was drunk, I think, and was as ill-dressed for the weather as I was. The young man was trying to put a coat on her, but she was furious and swept it off again, knocking me down into the snow with it. She didn’t even care—just marched on alone. But the young man stopped to help me up and to make certain I hadn’t been hurt. He had the kindest, most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen . . . .” she trailed off dreamily, then shook herself. “That’s when he gave me the coat.” 

She gestured to the brown, suede bundle in her husband’s lap. “You may not believe it to look at it now, but I’m sure it was brand new when he gave it me, and very beautiful and warm. I wore it for the next ten years, slowly growing into it as it grew shabbier and shabbier! Why, there were a few times when I think I would surely have frozen to death if it weren’t for that coat.”

“That’s one gif’. What’s the ovver one?” Ian urged her on.

Mary held him tight. “Oh, the coat would have been enough! It provided warmth and comfort to me for all my growing-up years. It was a constant reminder that there were people out there who cared. But even more importantly, the young man gave me words to live by. He’d been watching me throwing the snowballs, and he said, ‘I like your persistence. Keep up that stubborn streak and you can do anything you like.’” 

“Oh, you grew up stubborn, all right!” Greg laughed, seeming glad to grasp at something to laugh about.

Sherlock had to agree. “No one’s more persistent than you are,” he said, but he was watching John’s face. And he knew.

“Oh, shush! Shush! Let her finish!” Molly implored desperately.

Mary smiled at her friend’s enthusiasm and continued, “He said, ‘Just keep on trying and never give up.’ It’s such simple advice, but I’ve thought about his words every single day. ‘Would he like my persistence today?’ I’d ask myself. ‘What does not-giving-up look like in this situation?’ I can’t explain it, but somehow I just wanted to live my life in a way that would make him proud of me.”

John cleared his throat. “He is,” he said softly.

Mary froze. Slowly, as if in shock, she turned to look at him. “What?” she gasped, more breath than sound. Molly and Greg looked at their friends in puzzlement. Sherlock leaned forward eagerly, knowing what was coming.

“What was the name of the village you were living in when you got that coat?” her husband asked, his voice deceptively calm and yet his hands were shaking.

Mary trembled, tears starting in her eyes again, and Ian slipped to the floor in order to look at both his parents at once. She stuttered, “I. . . I don’t know. It was so long ago and I didn’t stay there very long. I don’t remember. I . . . can’t remember the name of it.”

“Old Alresford,” Greg spoke up unexpectedly, and everyone in the room swiveled towards him. He shrugged. “I had to check up on you, didn’t I? I went next day, and the old bat told me she’d sent you on to her sister’s in Old Alresford, Hampshire. Contacted the constabulary there, and they assured me it was a good family.” He looked at John, and he also knew. “That’s where you grew up, isn’t it?”

“Oh, my Captain,” Mary whispered. She reached out and touched John’s face as if seeing it for the first time. “It WAS you, wasn’t it? I feel as if I’ve known it all the time. I recognized your eyes . . . .”

John put his hand over hers against his cheek. “You’ve changed quite a lot since then; but I recognized this coat,” he explained simply. “I can’t believe you kept it all these years.” He held her hand against his lips in a lingering kiss.

“Oh, Mary!” Molly gulped, teary-eyed again. “It really IS just like a fairy story.”

“Daddy say ‘not give up’ to me all the time,” Ian said petulantly. “It don’t make ME cry.”

Amidst the general laughter, John picked up his son and hugged him. “One day, you’ll understand how truly exceptional your mother is,” he said.

“How exceptional your family is,” Mary corrected him. “Your dad and your papa and your uncle have been giving you all of the same gifts they gave to me, all of your life: truth and self-confidence; self-worth and protection; comfort and encouragement,” she told her son. “Sherlock was right, you know. It’s who a child will be that’s most important—and they helped me grow up to be the person I am today. They will help you to become the best man you can be, as well; and when baby Justine is born, they will give her these same gifts to help her along.”

“What gif’s YOU give, Mummy?” Ian demanded of her. 

Molly immediately responded with, “Courage and humour!”

“What gif’s YOU give, Aunt M’y?” 

“Patience and generosity,” his mother chimed in promptly. “And what gifts will YOU give baby Justine, Ian?”

Ian screwed his little face up in thought. “I still want to give baby Jussy some toys,” he said earnestly. “She’ll really need those the most.”

Sherlock looked around at the little family, whom fate had brought together, as tears and laughter commingled freely, marvelling at the joy they gave to each other simply by existing. To each other, and-- if he was honest enough to admit it -- to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to sweetmarly for finding a great name for Baby Lestrade—your research paid off, my friend! Justine Johnstone was a real person, and a fascinating one at that. Look her up!


End file.
